A PLACE TO LEPAK

Friday, 25 June 2010

Assalamualaikum

First, apologies kalau banyak typos berabis. Im using a keyboard im berabisly not use to and also in a bit of a rush. Point of this post is it was my first jumaat back in brunei today and i was looking forward to it because i enjoy the UBD mosque. Nothing can beat it in the UK. Nothing can beat it in most places. Everything seems small in comparison. Nada emotional feel i have with the UBD mosque.

My favourite time would be time sembahyang raya. Bangun at 530 to make sure dapat parking arah masjid (we dont jalan at 530, bangun saja pasal kami batah kan get ready). ngalih ngalih berabis because time ramadhan bangun at 3pm everyday. But when u go into the masjid you still feel ngalih and its even worse because the aircond plus wudhu water makes you very cold. This makes my nose fill up with ingus. At least nowadays ive learned to bring tissues. Kalau masa kanak kanak pakai baju saja. HAHAHA.

Anyway back to my point. I was looking forward to my first jumaat back. And it was good. Masuk masjid ada familiar environment. The whole feel was also very bruneian, which i like. Kalau sembahyang di uk, u dont get the same feeling. Macam everyone strangers saja. Tapi the thing that felt missing was the khutbah. Hari ani khutbah was pasal dadah. Dont get me wrong, im not supporting drugs or anything, i just think the khutbah maybe a little out of place to the people who actually go for sembahyang jumaat.

Ill try to not sound too preachy here but I think what the islamic authorities, the government and the imams should really focus on is bringing stronger islamic values to our lives. I just feel that focussing on drugs is only addressing a small part of the problem. I think we need to focus on the basics. Get people to come back to religion, strengthen their religion, then focus on other goals.

Religion first. And what better way than to bring people back to the basic principals. When we have a strong foundation, a problem like drugs would be easy to kill. Also, are ciggarettes a drug? hahaha. Ada problem kali tu trying to get rid of that problem.

Well this is only my first jumaat back. I may be talking nonsense so forgive me kalau ada tesalah cakap.

Saturday, 5 June 2010

Assalamualaikum warrahmatullah

Hello all. I wont bore you with the normal 'sorry aku batah inda update' stuff. Im sure most of you know aku ani pemalas especially when it comes to times when I have so much free time on my hands. Its when im at my laziest to do anything besides main game. If I could get a game console and a tv hammered to the ceiling so i wouldnt have to get up ... I would still probably find something to complain about as I would still have to get up and make food. Changing game cds would also be a problem kalau the console is on the ceiling. Its still a good idea though for a lazy gamer. Probably not the best for a normal person.

Banarnya the only reason why I have worked up enough effort to update is because I am in a jiwang mood. For those of you who dont know, I am a hopeless romantic. I always have been. Since my days in SOAS ive always been dreaming of ways to sweep my (imaginary) girlfriend off her feet and amaze her with my totally awesome acts of romance. My siblings, who also probably read this, think im gay for doing it. We as a family have never really been that in touch with romance. Membari malu saja kalau ngam kedapatan aku kan bejiwang sama (imaginary) girlfriend / wife. But nevertheless, the ideas flow through my head like water from my super leaky kitchen tap.

Today I re-watched 'definitely maybe' again. It is up there with my favorite love movie of all time, 'Love Actually'. Gila I could watch these films over and over and never get bored. For the more relatable (spelling!!) jiwang movie, I waste hours upon hours with 'ayat ayat cinta'. Ohh Aisya how cantik you are. Berapa kali sudah ku liat and also think about how differently I would do things if I were in that situation. One of the reasons aku iski berabis kan ke Egypt back in april was because aku kan relive the whole film. Sadly, balum masanya. But Alhamdullillah, best trip I have ever been on.

So here's the whole point of this post. Why am I so caught up with this idea of romance? Or rather, why am I so caught up with this idea of a western romance? Even ayat ayat cinta, despite the marriage being done in a halal way, I THINK that the main guy atu is concerned about the western concept of love.

How you fall in love at first sight. How you automatically know this is the person you are suppose to live the rest of your life with. ...(insert other movie scenarios) ... In my opinion, these are all western ideas about love.

Im not saying this is wrong. I have been pretty much obsessed with these ideas. How I wish to meet my future wife and automatically know that this girl is definitely (maybe :P) the girl im going to spend dunia and akhirat with. It drives you crazy this idea of love. You long for it. Obsess over it. Stress yourself out over it. Get depressed over it. But why? I ask myself the same question all the time.

The only thing I can think of is that we are desperately looking for the person who will complete us. Who will complete our Iman. Who will make us better people, better muslims. I think most would agree.

But lately I thought of something else. Who better to look for when we want to better ourselves. Who better to complete us. Who better than our creator Allah the all mighty, the all knowing. How can we ask/beg Allah for our soul mate, for love when we are missing out the most important thing. Love for our lord. We (maybe just I), take too much for granted when it comes to these matters. We (I) ask for so much but give so little in return. You need to think back right to the basics.

Why were we created?

To worship Allah.

Next would be how do we worship Allah? First there are the five pillars of Islam then the 6 pillars of faith. You can make individual questions for all of these and I could be here all night so instead I will skip to the most important one in relation to what im talking about.

How do we love Allah?

We love our parents im quite sure. They brought us up, made us into the fine people we are today. Can we honestly say we love Allah in an equal manner to our parents. This is already wrong. We should love Allah more than anything other person, thing or idea. Now this is true love. This is the love which is the most powerful in the world. Now I will share with you something I read from a book. This is not exactly what I read so I ask for forgiveness for any inaccuracies.

Allah created an ocean of love. One drop from this ocean has been divided into all the love we have for things. Love for a girlfriend. For a beautiful man/woman. For football. For games. For everything except love you have for your lord. And when you find this love, Allah will bless you with oceans of love. And this is true love. Then you will have endless love for your wife/husband. Only when you understand the love for your lord will you get anywhere close to truly loving anything else.

Apologies kalau ada salah sedikit/banyak. This is pokoknya i guess. To find love, we need to first love Allah. This can be very easy of very difficult. All matters are up to Allah to decide. It has all been preordained so dont worry about it. I can say honestly that I am MILES AND MILES AND MILES away from where I should be. Where I want to be. So ive realised, how can I ask for marriage when I myself am not where I should be as a good muslim.

Insyallah one day we will all reach the highest level of love and religion. Insyallah we will have a loving spounse to share this with. Just remember that Allah doesnt test any of us to more than we can cope with. Just stay strong and chillax, have faith. If your faith is lost, so is your religion so never lose it. Insyallah.

Thursday, 25 February 2010

Im going to take a short break from the home sweet home posts ive been doing. Partly because im a little depressed about the whole kawin thing. Long story short.... lain kali saja lah. Instead, its islamic week (or the end of islamic week) in canterbury kent uni and ive been going to a few lectures about islam. Its really opened my mind to some of the issues regarding Allah the Almighty, the Prophet Muhammad S.A.W and being a good muslim.

What does it mean to be a good muslim? Rukun Islam and Rukun Iman is a good start. Always keep good morals. Do what our parents tell us to do except for syirik (setting up partners to Allah). But i think i can take it back to just one simple thing, belief in Allah the one and only creator. It is all fine and dandy to say that you are a muslim, but when push comes to shove, you need to ask yourself honestly, how much do you believe in Allah. Now I know this is a very sensitive question but this is all necessary to see how good we are as muslims. So to start, and show im not being hypocritical or anything, im going to tell you how I was a couple of years ago. Not even years maybe banarnya.

Ive been praying since my parents went on Haji when I was waiting for my O levels to come out. I have to admit, partly because I wanted good results, but also because I wanted my parents to come home safely. I think, to the best of my knowledge, I have not missed a prayer since that day when my parents left. Of course ive missed the time to pray but ive always made them up. This was especially the case in Maktab Duli as id kumpul all my prayers and do them sudah ku balik dari sekolah. Sekolah for me at that time was for dating and going to gadong. May Allah forgive me for my stupidity when I was younger. For subuh prayers, only a few months ago I started waking up to pray them properly. Lagi talur.

So if I were to count the years ive been praying, it will come up to 8 years. But when I think to myself, how many of those years did I have complete faith and confidence in Allah. I think it would have to be zero. See, being born a muslim, I take things for granted. Sembahyang because that is what a muslim is suppose to do. Puasa, bagi zakat, naik haji, all because a good muslim is suppose to do these things. But this defeats the purpose of being a muslim. We dont do it because everyone else does it and we feel obliged to do it, we do it because of our love for Allah. Not for reward, not for fear of being punished, simply and plainly for the love of our creator. Im not saying that fear and reward should not be used as a starting point, because nobody can go from being a zero to the best muslim in the world. We start to do these things we are told to avoid the hellfire and enter paradise. But as we grow older, learn more and live life, we suddenly sadar how much Allah has granted us (blessed us with) and asked for nothing in return but for us to worship him and only him. Why ask for anything else from our creator? Why must we expect a reward for everything we do when we have already been granted the best blessing we could ever be given, and that is life.

I saw alhamdullilah to all of the muslims who are trying to better themselves. There is no greater way (I think, forgive my bluntness) to please Allah than to sacrifice the joys of the dunia in order to strive to become a better muslim. What upsets me though is the muslims who take everything for granted. This is why is said we need to ask ourselves how much we believe in Allah.

If we believe in our creator, why do we continue to disobey his orders. Why do we continue begatal gatal, where clothes which shows off body parts, blatantly fornicate which each other.. not just in private tapi in public jua! Im not saying i havent done these things because unfortunately I have. It just shows that my faith was not that strong. So why do we do these things? Maybe we do not believe in Allah. Maybe we live and then we die without being held accountable for the things we have done. Maybe Charles Darwin was right and we all did evolve from monkeys. (Funny story here, i type theory of evolution in google to find out darwins first name and the wiki page comes up. It doesnt say THEORY of evolution though. Just evolution. Sitahu jua si wiki ani, tarus tarus kan shout out to the world that evolution is not a theory)

So how do we prove to ourselves that Allah exists? We can just say to ourselves that we believe but those are just the words of the ignorant. A good muslim has a duty to find the answers to these questions as you cant just follow anything blindly. So where are the answers to these questions. That is the Al-Quran. The holy book which contains the words of Allah sent down to the Prophet Muhammad S.A.W. Im not sure which ayat and I apologize for just quoting blindly without giving you the verse number but there is an ayat in the Al-Quran which states that (and im paraphrasing here) 'the signs of Allah are all around you. All you have to do is look at the sun, the moon, the stars the sky and the seas and these are all the signs given to you.' (It would also help kalau ada orang with the actual ayat here, apologies again) Allah has also said to the disbelievers of the Al-Quran that if you disbelieve in what has been brought down to you, then go and create something like the Al-Quran (again, paraphrasing because im not sure of the full ayat).

I know my explanation wont be the most convincing one made to a non-believer or one with little faith, and I blame that on my ignorance. But basically the point here is that there is nobody who can make something anything close to the magnificence of the Al-Quran. Not even the smartest person in the world. Let alone when we consider the fact that the prophet (may peace be upon him) was unable to read or write. He was neither a poet or a scholar and yet he brought with him the the Al-Quran. So how can you deny this truth? Its in the Al-Quran that its words are protected and have never been altered. It has been memorized and passed down for almost 1500 years without ever changing. This is fact. It says so in the Al-Quran and you cannot deny this. The only thing which has changed after 1500 years is the narrations from the Al-Quran. This is why we have different understandings and different practices around the globe. As the Al-Quran is the most perfect form of literary work, there is of course different understandings of it.

What is important though is to almost keep the basics close to our heart. Believe in Allah. Believe in what he has granted us and that is the Al-Quran and the practices of Nabi Muhammad S.A.W. Know that there is no doubt of the existence of Allah our creator. If you still doubt, then read the Al-Quran and understand it. We have been given a brain to think. Use it. Learn something which is important in life. Maths will only get you a scholarship to again pursue more useless knowledge. We could die tomorrow without ever knowing the true bliss of being a good muslim. This is why we need to strive to better ourselves. Learn from the Prophet, may peace be upon him. We have been left his sunnah to learn from. Why continue to deny this when everyday we come closer to the only certainty in life (Death btw).

Monday, 22 February 2010

Again sorry for the delay in writing part 3. I was in Manchester for the whole week and had little time to write anything. Main farmville saja.

Ok so I have talked about what to look for in a husband and what to look for in a wife. Ada one question about if there is any proof saying why a man should have good moral conduct and good religious background. I cant really find anything specific in my notes about why your future husband should have these qualities, but there are tons of verses from the Al-Quran and from the Prophet S.A.W sunnah that a man should have these qualities anyway. Everyone should strive to get these qualities to become a better muslim. Thats the best I can give you unfortunately.

COMPATIBILITY

So you have found the person who has the perfect qualities to become a spouse. Should you marry right there and then? Of course not. There are plenty of other things that you can discuss to make sure you are making the right decision. Are you compatible in terms of intellect, physical looks, financially, morally and psychologically? And of course are you compatible in terms of iman and spirituality? All of these things can be important in the future because your spouse will not only be your spouse in the dunia, but they will also be your spouse in the hereafter.

This is why picking a spouse is so important. Its not a decision you should take lightly. You should get to know the person you are going to marry before you actually marry the person. But this does not mean dating is halal. Dating is still very much haram. But there are plenty of ways to get to know a person without going into haram territory.

Taaruf, meeting each other via family and friends. As long as inda jumpa one on one saja. There are plenty of other ways jua masa ani with technology at the peak of the social mountain.... or something. Facebook, msn, hotmail bla bla bla. But when doing this you need to watch what you talk about. It is halal as long as what you are talking about it not something you will be embarrassed about if each of your parents or guardians tebaca it. This makes sure you arent talking about anything yang inda tantu tantu. Sorry I dont really have any proofs to back this up. This is actually my take on the whole situation but please feel free to post anything that you may not agree with or stuff you may want to add.

Now you've found yourself the perfect girl or guy. What next? Kawin. Alum. There is a 4 point method before you take the plunge.

1) Istishaarah (consulting others)

Asking people about the other persons background. Collecting information about what kind of person they are. Do your homework before making one of the most important decisions in your life

2) Istikhaarah

Imam an-Nawawi rahimahullah said "In this [the narration about the istikhaara of Zainab radi-allahu anha] is a recommendation to make istikhaarah for anyone who has any matter concering him, whether the goodness in the matter be clear or not. It may be that she made istikhaarah due to her fear that she might fall into some shortcoming in serving him (Prophet Muhammad S.A.W)"

3) Determination

After you do these 2 and if you get signs from the istikhaarah prayer, act accordingly with full faith that you are doing the right thing as you have received a sign from Allah.

4) Trust

Yah. Put your trust in Allah and dont hesitate. Alhamdullillah you have found your soul mate and are on the road to completion of your iman.

Thats all for now. Hopefully all of that made sense. Please leave comments and feedback. May Allah bless us and our future choices, or if kamu kawin sudah, may Allah bless your marriage and your future children. Amin